D.A. Davidson hires in response to Western states' population boom

D.A. Davidson has increased the firepower on a team that finances public infrastructure to support land development as the population of some Western states has exploded in recent years.

Tim Morzel and Andrew Wheeler were recently hired as vice presidents to expand the broker-dealer’s Special District Group, a team that specializes in tapping municipal bonds to finance infrastructure that supports homes and businesses cropping up in high-growth states.

"As we kick off 2022, we have expanded our bench of experts in special district financing with two strong additions to our team,” said Kyle Thomas, managing director of the group.

Prior to joining D.A. Davidson, Morzel was a vice president in the Denver office of Economic & Planning Systems, a land use economics consulting firm.

Wheeler comes over from Stifel where he worked five years on tax exempt and taxable bonds for municipalities in Colorado, Utah and Oklahoma.

Before shifting to public finance banking, Wheeler was the lead revenue analyst and state infrastructure manager at the Colorado Department of Transportation. He has also served with the Colorado Municipal Bond Dealers Association since 2018.

D.A. Davidson

The firm had also hired two senior vice presidents — Pat Colleran and Sam Hartman — and William Norman as a vice president on the quantitative analytics team, in July 2021 to meet increased demand in Colorado, Utah and Idaho. And, it plans to “continue to invest in our team in high-growth markets,” Thomas said.

The fastest-growing states over the past decade were predominantly in the West and South, according to a Pew Trusts report that ranked Utah as the fastest growing state over the past decade with a gain of 1 million people.

Idaho came in second behind Utah, adding more than 271,000 residents, significant in a state with 1.85 million residents. The Gem State's population has grown by 17.4% since the 2010 Census, when Idaho was the nation's fourth-fastest growing state and had a population of 1.6 million.

To deal with the state’s growth, Utah lawmakers approved Senate Bill 228 in 2019 that allows cities, counties and development authorities to create special districts to finance infrastructure to support new housing and public service popping up, as well as redevelopment projects.

Property owners in the public infrastructure district pay a special tax assessment that covers the cost of improvements, like roads, sewer or water lines, sidewalks or parks to support development.

Utah is late to the game — as the concept is similar to Colorado’s metropolitan districts and Nevada’s general improvement districts.

D.A. Davidson worked on the bond deal for the first public infrastructure district created in 2020 after Utah lawmakers approved the financial tool, according to the firm.

The broker-dealer sold $42.8 million of unrated limited tax general obligation bonds on August 25, 2020, for Medical Campus Public Infrastructure District in Provo to finance infrastructure for an osteopathic medical school campus planned for the 30-acre site. In 2021, five more of the special districts were created in the state, and Thomas expects growth in that sector to continue.

In 2021, the Special District Group at D.A. Davidson completed more than 80 transactions for a total par of $1.7 billion, according to the firm.

“We anticipate the demand for the financing tools we provide to remain strong in 2022 and beyond,” Thomas said.